Dukakis Going After Demos In Montgomery Election 88

September 21, 1988|by SCOTT BIEBER, The Morning Call

During the next two months, registered Democrats in Souderton, Lansdale, Pennsburg and other parts of Montgomery County will be getting phone calls and literature asking them to vote for Gov. Michael S. Dukakis for president.

Democratic Party leaders concede that Vice President George Bush will win the county, where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats 2-1. They just don't want any of the county's 87,293 registered Democrats swinging over with him.

Despite its majority of registered Democrats, Pennsylvania, with its 25 electoral votes, is considered a toss-up in November. Thus, Montgomery, with the fifth-largest number of registered Democrats of any county in the state, according to the elections bureau, has become a battlefield for Dukakis supporters.

"It's the most extensive effort the Democrats have ever put into a Montgomery County presidential campaign," said James Maza, one of the three Dukakis co-chairmen in the county. "It's important because you can't win Pennsylvania unless you do well in the suburbs."

The Dukakis campaign has even designated a full-time field organizer to concentrate solely on wooing the Montgomery Democrats - the first time a Democratic presidential campaign has assigned the county its own leader, according to Maza and county Democratic committee chairman Buck Scott.

"Our goal is to influence the swing voters. If we can't win, we want to hold down the margin," said Lenny Stern, the Dukakis campaign manager for eastern Pennsylvania.

About 125 county party leaders, volunteers and Dukakis people met last week in Fort Washington for a pep rally to coordinate their efforts and push forward. Campaign leaders have been appointed in almost every local government in the county. Hundreds of volunteers have already begun working phone banks, distributing Dukakis leaflets and generally talking-up the candidate, said Maza.

A thousand volunteers are expected to join the fray before it's over, he said.

"This time it's a little more concentrated, a little more business- like," said Scott.

The county field organizer, Ken Weinstein, 24, has managed two political campaigns in his career, a losing effort for Joe Hoeffel against U.S. Rep. R. Lawrence Coughlin of Montgomery County in 1986, and a lost bid for a Philadelphia city council candidate last year. But Weinstein notes that Hoeffel came close in heavy Republican territory with 44 percent of the vote.

Weinstein and a battery of volunteers are working out of county party headquarters on Airy Street in Norristown, pushing Dukakis and also assisting Montgomery Democratic candidates for the state Legislature. With additional phone banks in private offices scattered across the county, Weinstein projects 100,000 phone calls will be made to Democrats and perhaps even some Republicans and independents in swing areas of the county, such as Souderton, Lansdale and Pottstown, he said.

Volunteers have also held registration drives, and next week will drop Dukakis leaflets door-to-door in the Upper Perkiomen area around East Greenville, Pennsburg and Red Hill.

Scott said the growing populations in the North Penn area, "where we have been historically weak," could be lucrative pickings for both parties, and that Weinstein will "get some action there."

Stern said the decision to assign a single campaign leader to Montgomery County was not a response to recent polls indicating that Dukakis support in the state is flagging. "The day after the convention we knew how close this state would be. We are taking nothing for granted," he said.

Scott doubts that Dukakis will make a campaign stop in the county. He said if a suburban Philadelphia stop is needed, Dukakis will probably visit Bucks County, which has even more Democratic voters and where U.S. Rep. Peter Kostmayer would benefit in his bid for re-election.